


Not a Superhero

by LokiOfSassgaard



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-05
Updated: 2009-07-05
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:47:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiOfSassgaard/pseuds/LokiOfSassgaard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two boys grow up very differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Superhero

1978

“I want you home before your father.”

Nicholas turned round in the doorway, hearing the other boys laughing from outside. “Okay, mum,” he agreed.

“And don’t you go spending all your pocket change, either,” Katherine Angel warned, drying her hands on a small towel as she approached her son. “I want you to be able to call me should anything happen.”

“Okay, mum,” Nicholas repeated. Again, the boys outside laughed. “Can I go now?”

Katherine quickly ran her hand through the boy’s shaggy blond hair. “Get out of here,” she said lightly.

Grinning madly, Nicholas ran down the stone steps to the small group of boys waiting for him, the lot making their way down the relatively sparse street that led to Regents Park.

“I wanna play pirates in the pond!” a ginger-haired boy called Jamie exclaimed loudly, met with loud groans from the rest of the boys.

“We did that last week,” Robert said. H e was eleven – a full two years older than Nicholas, but barely any taller. “My dad had me with his belt because you tore my shirt up last time.”

“We can try to get into the cinema,” Cameron suggested. “Bond came out last week. My big brother saw it last night.”

“What’s that?” Nicholas asked. The confused stares the other boys answered him with made him step backwards slightly. “Dad doesn’t let us watch telly,” he said slowly, by way of explanation.

“He’s the best superhero ever!” Cameron explained loudly.

“He’s not a superhero, you pillock,” Robert said, giving Cameron a heavy shove. “He’s a spy!”

“Don’t push me, you ponce!” Cameron shoved Robert, knocking him to the wet grass.

Growling loudly, Robert got to his feet and charged the larger boy, the two of them colliding with Nicholas and Jamie.

“Watch it!” Jamie shrieked, scrambling out from under the pile. He kicked fiercely at the boys, missing every one of them, before running across the green and leading the others on a chase through the park.

“We probably shouldn’t be running!” Nicholas panted loudly, barely managing to keep pace with the others. “We might—”

“Shut it, Nicky!” The other boys shouted at once, each pausing just long enough to empty the contents of their pockets, throwing a collection of small, round rocks and marbles in Nicholas’ direction.

“Stop it!” Nicholas shouted back.

He ran to tackle Jamie, being the nearest to him, but the boys had all picked up speed again, leading a path through the centre of the park, leaping over benches and winding through bushes and trees as they tried to evade one another. The chase continued around a small pond, aggravating the ducks that had all been huddling together in the shallow weeds. Several of the animals began flapping madly in their plight to get away, distracting Nicholas long enough to forge t to mind his footing. Stepping hard on a slick patch, Nicholas tumbled gracelessly forward onto the mud and rocks, sending the few remaining ducks squawking to the other end of the pond.

“Oi!” Cameron shouted when he lost Nicholas from the side of his vision. “Nicky fell! Wait up!”

The other boys stopped, turning to see Nicholas sitting on the rocks with a dark red smear running up his arm.

“That’s nasty, mate,” Jamie said as he bent down in front of Nicholas, cautiously reaching out.

“Don’t touch it!” Nicholas barked, slapping Jamie’s hand away. “Hurts.”

He tried to wipe some of the blood away with his fingers, hissing loudly at the contact.

“Did you break it?” Robert asked, perhaps a bit too enthused, as he leaned into Nicholas’ space

Sneering, Nicholas gave him a two-fingered salute as he got to his feet. “M’fine,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”

“You should clean it,” Robert pointed out. “You got all that duck mud all over you.”

“With what? The duck water?” Nicholas asked. “No way.” He looked down at his arm again, deciding that it wasn’t as bad as the rest were making it out to be. As he again tried wiping some of the mud away with his fingers, the sound of bells started to carry across the green.

“Ice cream!” Jamie shouted, no longer interested about his friend’s scrape. Digging his hand into his pocket, he started running in the direction of the bells, the other three quick to follow.

 

1983

Danny sighed as he looked out the window for the nth time that afternoon.

“Why can’t I go out and play football?” he asked desperately. “S’not like I got homework or nothing.”

Irene Butterman looked tiredly across the room at her son, his entire body slumped over the arm of the sofa. “Because, those boys play rough,” she explained simply. “You’ll just get hurt.”

“I won� �t,” Danny insisted.

“Danny, that’s just how boys are.” Irene finally put her magazine down on the table and got to her feet. “I’ve seen the way they harass one another.”

“But mum,” Danny whined. “S’just football. Not like they’re throwing rocks at cars or nothing.”

“Who says they’re not?” She started making her way to the kitchen, eager to get supper started.

Danny groaned loudly as he rolled off of the sofa and onto the floor. “Mum, please!” he begged as the front door opened.

“Please, what?” Frank stepped into the house, pausing at the door to look at his son. “Danny, what are you arguing about now?”

Irene quickly made her way out to greet her husband, kissing him lightly. “Danny wants to go out and play football with those hooligans outside.”

Frank turned to look back out at the group of boys on the street, watching them kick the ball back and forth for a few moments. “Long as he� ��s cleaned up for supper, I don’t see a problem with it,” he reasoned. “A boy’s got to have some hobbies, after all.”

“Really, dad?” Danny asked excitedly as he rushed to fetch his shoes.

Frank reached out to stop him before he could make it to his room. “Now, I don’t want to hear that you caused any trouble, you hear?” he warned.

“Okay,” Danny agreed. A few moments later, Frank let him go, watching as he ran to his room.

“He’ll just get hurt,” Irene said simply. “I’ve seen those boys out there playing before.”

“He’s a kid,” Frank reasoned. “It’s good for him to get a few scrapes and bumps every now and then.”

As he sat to remove his own shoes, Danny rushed through the house to the front door, pulling it open.

“Now, you come back inside when your mother calls you,” Frank reminded him.

“Okay,” Danny repeated before running out to the other boys, barely shutting the door be hind him.

“You can’t play,” one of the boys called out. Danny recognised him from school, but didn’t know his name.

“Oh, just let him,” someone else said. “Or he’ll tell his dad to arrest us or something.”

“Fine,” the first boy said. “You can be on his team.”

“Thanks!” Danny said with a grin. He ran to get into position, looking up and down the street cautiously. “Where’s the goals?” he asked the boy nearest him.

“Those chalk marks, there,” the boy said, pointing at a pair of faded blue marks on the street.

Danny nodded, waiting for the ball to finally get to their side. He found he did a fair amount of waiting, though, since their offence did a fair job at keeping the ball near the opposing team’s goal. When the ball finally did get near him, Danny gave it a hearty kick, sending it completely and totally out of bounds, where it landed over a chain link fence.

“Oh, what’d you do that for? ” one of his team mates shouted. “You kicked it over there. You go get it.”

Danny looked around for sympathy from the other players, and when he found none, he sulked off toward the fence. “It’s high,” he pointed out. When no one showed any indication that they cared, he wrapped his fingers through the holes in the fence and tried to pull himself up and over. “You guys, this is high!” he shouted as he neared the top.

“Get the fucking ball!” one of the boys shouted.

Frowning, Danny tried to swing himself over the top of the fence, but he misjudged the distance and missed with his foot. He hung on the top of the fence for a few seconds before finally losing his grip, falling to the grass below.

He told himself that he wasn’t going to cry. He willed himself not to cry. That plan lasted about fifteen seconds before he gave in, sobbing in the grass beside the fence. Before the other boys had a chance to inspect the damage, Irene had r ushed out the front door, making a line straight to Danny.

“Come on, Danny,” she said lightly, checking quickly to see that he didn’t break anything.

“I fell, mum,” Danny said, letting Irene pull him to his feet. “I was trying to get the ball, and...”

He watched as one of the older boys hopped the fence without hesitation, kicking the ball back to the street. Pulling Danny away from the other children, she led him back to the house, casting a sour glance in Frank’s direction as he watched from the doorway.

 

2007

They were on foot patrol when the call came over the radio, of a teenage boy that had assaulted the newsagent clerk. Turning around, Nicholas saw a boy that fit the description running from the direction of the newsagent.

“Oi!” he shouted. The boy paused long enough to register the presence of two police officers before running again, continuing in his original path. “Danny!” Nicholas called, giving chase.

He could hear Danny struggling to keep up behind him as he ran through the village streets, all but praying that the boy didn’t pull some idiot move like run into traffic. Instead, as they came to the bridge by the castle, the boy jumped off it, landing in the shallow water below. Still running, Nicholas peered over the edge to gauge the drop before leaping over the edge, himself.

Watching everything from several meters behind, Danny stopped cold. “Fuck that,” he muttered to himself, turning to fetch the cruiser instead.

Knee deep in cold frog eggs and other assorted pond muck, Nicholas ran wide on the boy’s right side, trying to shepherd him back toward dry land and paved roads. Instead, the boy darted off to the right, up a steep embankment behind the castle. Giving a burst of speed to get out of the icy water, Nicholas followed the boy around the castle, not expecting to find him stopped just on the other side of the building. Nor was he e xpecting the boy to make a swing at him.

“That’s assaulting an officer,” Nicholas snarled, his eyes blurred and his nose on fire.

He reached for his baton, using it to take out the boy’s knees and bringing him to the ground as he pulled his cuffs from his belt.

“You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence,” he recited robotically, latching the cuffs around the boy’s wrists.

As he pulled the boy to his feet, he heard the Impreza’s sirens back by the pond, and tugged on the boy to get him moving toward the car. As they walked the wide track around the pond to where the car was parked, Danny trotted over to them, taking the suspect from Nicholas’ grip.

“What’d you do that for, Kenny?” he asked as he muscled the boy into the car. “What’s your mum gonna say?”

He shut the d oor, finally looking up at his partner.

“Fuck, Nick. You’re bleeding,” he pointed out.

“Am I?” Nicholas reached up and wiped his lip with the back of his hand, pausing to look at the smear of red across his skin. He frowned at it, already dreading the paperwork that would come from this call. “Guess you’d better call a medical crew, then,” he said flatly

Danny chuckled lightly as he unlocked the boot. “What are you? Robocop?”

Nicholas leaned against the car and pinched his nose, trying to stop it bleeding. “Who?” he asked honestly.

Danny only shook his head as he pulled out the first aid kit and began digging through its many confusing contents.


End file.
